How do surface currents impact the globe?
Ocean currents act much like a conveyor belt, transporting warm water and precipitation from the equator toward the poles and cold water from the poles back to the tropics. Thus, ocean currents regulate global climate, helping to counteract the uneven distribution of solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface.
What are the results of surface currents?
As water travels in a circular motion in the large currents that comprise gyres, Coriolis effects and Ekman transport direct water to the center of the gyre. When this happens, water piles up above normal sea level. Thus, sea level tends to be higher in the center of ocean basins.
What four things do surface currents transport around the Earth?
Surface Currents
- global wind patterns.
- the rotation of the Earth.
- the shape of the ocean basins.
What happens when surface currents meet land?
Currents affect climate by moving warm and cold water around the globe. How do surface currents affect climate on land? Surface Currents circulate warm and cold water around the Earth, either warming or cooling the air above it, thus affecting the climate.
What are the connections between the atmosphere and the ocean off the coast of South America?
Ocean-Atmosphere Coupling in the Southeast Pacific. Winds blowing along the South American coast bring cold, deep ocean water to the surface. This is one of several ways that the ocean and atmosphere in the Southeast Pacific are connected.
How are the currents at the surface of the ocean?
Surface Currents At the ocean surface, currents are primarily driven by winds. These winds help the atmosphere and ocean to move heat around the world. The winds drive an ocean circulation transporting warm water to the poles along the sea surface.
Why are surface currents not affected by weather?
These surface currents do not depend on weather; they remain unchanged even in large storms because they depend on factors that do not change. Surface currents are created by three things: global wind patterns, the rotation of the Earth, and the shape of the ocean basins. Surface ocean currents.
Where do warm and cold surface currents flow?
Warm surface currents invariably flow from the tropics to the higher latitudes, driven mainly by atmospheric winds, as well as the earth’s rotation. Cold surface currents come from polar and temperate latitudes, and they tend to flow towards the equator.
How are the currents in the Indian Ocean created?
Ocean surface currents are produced by global winds, the Coriolis effect and the shape of each ocean basin. The Pacific and Atlantic Oceans have a circular pattern of surface currents called gyres that circle clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern. The Indian Ocean only has a counterclockwise gyre.